


Inspect

by grayorca15, YearwalktheWorld



Series: Skynet: 900 [22]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Wings, Drama, Gen, Platonic Relationships, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Has a Different Name
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-10 21:36:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18668848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayorca15/pseuds/grayorca15, https://archiveofourown.org/users/YearwalktheWorld/pseuds/YearwalktheWorld
Summary: Wings AU. Not in this life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Rambling entry is rambling.
> 
> #whocares

Not unused to being under the proverbial microscope, RK900 model #313 248 317 -89 didn’t so much as blink at the roundabout overview Jeffrey Fowler soon subjected them to.

No.

What Noah found more quietly annoying (borderline offensive) was the police captain’s very linear means of questioning. There may as well have not been another person in the office at all. For the past ten minutes, the dewinged android may as well have substituted for a potted plant.

Which was a laugh. There were a few such examples between the break room and Lieutenant Anderson’s desk. Androids didn’t look much like decorative ferns, young saplings, or dead Japanese maples.

Standing idle, hands behind his back, it took actual effort to tune back into whatever tangent Fowler was currently spouting.

Predictably enough, it was nothing he or Detective Reed wanted to hear.

“-by the end of May, much less June. I know, you’ve chased down so many leads on that one, you may as well say you’ve interviewed everyone in Dearborn. But even when I say _you_ I really mean _that_. And if CyberLife thinks this was how to send it back in working order, our job is to work with what we’ve got.”

“Shit, Fowler, did you forget his name? I'll introduce you again, this is Noah.” Half grumbling, clearly put off from the way their captain was addressing his partner, Gavin waved his still-operational hand around. “But yeah, yeah, we get it. We're fuckin’ on top of it, _both_ of us, no matter what the fuck we got workin’ for us.”

“Or against you?” Fowler quipped back, arms folded. He was far from swayed, going by body language and that arch tone. “I know what kinda sling your ass is in, Reed. I can see it, and I have the doctor’s reports. Your partner is another story.”

He wasn’t wrong. Even if CyberLife forwarded the necessary service records, per procedure, there was no guarantee the captain understood them. Not without a translator.

And Emilia had been turning up to the station on fewer occasions than her established usual. Field work kept her out on the streets for days at a time. (No coincidence Dennis was usually missing around the same times.)

Assimilating data as he was, garnering and logging case updates via the station’s wireless servers, Noah paid Gavin’s next retort only half as much attention:

“Okay, I'll be out of this shit soon enough, and as for Noah, ask him, then, he's right here! All systems fucking functional, right?” Turning to look at him for a second, Gavin didn't wait for an answer before he turned his attention back to Fowler. “He's fine, I'm fine, and we'll get the case fuckin’ handled, okay?”

It was as close to a promise as anyone could reasonably expect. Fowler had to know that. At the same time, he knew Reed and his professional tendencies going back years. Those words held a different kind of weight than Noah could discern.

He was but a toddler in this line of work, after all.

“After what almost happened to you, I should damn well hope so. Don’t mistake a ball-busting for not giving a shit about what happens to you, Reed. Not like there are a lot of kids out there queuing up to take your spot.”

What was that, a reverse-psychology kind of threat?

Blinking slowly, surfacing momentarily from his background processes, Noah mimed a soft sigh. “I’ll do my best to ensure it doesn’t happen again, Captain.”

Being grounded had its upside - now there wasn’t a chance of letting Gavin out of his sight long enough for any footchases to spring up. The last few to occur had ended with his partner shot, or beaten to a pulp, or falling off a roof. Maybe Reed didn’t care for the reminder, but his unchecked temper and bullheaded nature did tend to work against him.

“Hey, I got this fucking injury from being saved, I dunno if everyone forgot that, or? Whatever. It's gonna be fine, right?” Turning to him again with a raised eyebrow, Gavin gestured to him, as if almost confused by his own lack of griping, or the like. By his logic, the android was more than in the right to do his share. “We'll do our job, Cap, and we won't die. There.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Fowler let his eyes drop shut. He was wiser than to keep worrying away at the closed door Reed had thrown shut in his face. “Noted. …Dismissed.”

“Have a nice day, sir.” Deliberately monotone as that was, Noah sidestepped and reached for the door.

Better that than give another second for Gavin to keep spluttering his fury like an affronted duck.

Donald Duck, to be precise.


	2. Chapter 2

Strongarming anyone didn’t work so effectively when there was only one hand to utilize.

Rounding the corner of Captain Fowler’s office, headed for the evidence lockup, Reed tried to do just that (apparently upset their next stop wasn’t the breakroom). Noah stopped short the moment he felt fingers close on his collar and pull backwards.

“What the _fuck,_ Noah? What the hell was that back there?” Giving the collar a short yank, just as one would a disobedient dog, Gavin still didn't remove his hand from it just yet, though. “Listen, I know we talked about it, but did they drain every goddamn ounce of person outta you?”

Staring straight ahead, not quite convinced he needed to meet his partner’s eye, being handled as he was, Noah clenched his jaw. The false skin along the mandible bunched accordingly.

Yes, that had all been somewhat undignifying. Even if Fowler turned the walls opaque with the touch of a button, both men felt the compulsive need to raise their voices. Despite this, there was still a chain of command to respect, aside from whatever moral consolation the faulty RK900 might have been owed.

_Thanks for doing your job, saving one of our own. Now get back to it._

It needn’t be any more complicated than that. Impressing the idea on Reed was sure to take as long as anything else learned in the past half year. They hadn’t so much discussed his lack of emotive reaction as deflected it.

Now here they were again - set to chase their tails.

“And I told you, Detective Reed, I am forbidden from accessing the particulars. Might we keep the issue pinned for the time being?” Without pulling away, Noah brought up the holo-display between his fingers, calling up a witness report at random, pretending to read it over.

His mental status wasn’t what they went to work to handle.

“Uh, no? I thought maybe, yeah, could fuckin’ wait a day, but it's pretty obvious it can't. What the hell is up with you? I'm not askin’ you to - access any forbidden shit. I'm just asking what the fuck is wrong.”

Frowning to cover the impulsive twitch of his mouth, Noah followed that up by rolling his shoulder, effectively shrugging the hand off. His gaze never left the screen.

“I intend to get back to work. What’s inherently wrong about that?”

A few days at home might have imbued Gavin with the impression that it took time to recuperate from such a jarring experience. That was fine, in the case of humans. Time settled their heads and mended their bodies.

(Usually.)

Androids operated on a different timetable. How could he be efficient if they delayed in picking up the interrogation anew? He was still himself, effectively, and if Reed didn’t know quite what to make of this state, he would - eventually.

Thus far, he didn’t appear to approve.

“There's nothing wrong with that, but I ain't really fucking talkin’ about that, and you know it. I mean - why're you acting so robotic, in there? Like you got no fucking personality, or somethin’. You can - you don't need to just jump right into this shit all over again.”

No personality as Gavin Reed had come to know, anyway.

Closing his fingers with a _snap_ , banishing the screen into nonexistence, Noah strode onward. The archive room doors were only a shy seven feet away from where they stood.

“Don’t presume you know what I need so readily, Detective. You’re not an android.”

Just because he wasn’t foaming at the mouth with anger over Captain Fowler’s livid reminder didn’t mean he wasn’t feeling as much for it as he ever had before.

“I never fuckin’ said I was. I'm just asking a relevant fuckin’ question to my partner. I get you're not gonna be acting a hundred percent, but I'm just - wondering what you're thinking, when you won't show it, asshole.”

_Keep wondering._

The retort, akin to a more-polite _fuck off_ when one was speaking in Gavinese, almost lept off his tongue. Covering yet another irritated twitch, Noah stopped with his hand curled around the door’s handle.

“When I don’t show it… there’s a reason. Can you see how candid I am with you, as opposed to everyone else? That hasn’t changed.”

“Fine, sure, I _guess._ That doesn't mean you still aren't acting differently, Noah. But whatever, whatever.” Sounding still disgruntled, Gavin halfheartedly gave the argument up, shuffling a bit closer, from the sound of his footsteps. “Guess we can fucking drop it.”

No, on the one hand, he shouldn’t be letting it bother him as much as it was.

On the other, how the patronizing, surly demeanor chafed his already-worn circuit boards, there was only so much of it he could endure before lashing out. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want the frustration to get to him anymore than he wanted to admit the differences between before and after.

Instead of belittle and berate him, Reed _could_ be more accepting.

“You first,” Noah spat, letting a dark glower overtake his face. On that note, he wrenched the door open, barely missing the man as he stepped up behind his shoulder. “Because, full disclosure, bad friend or not, I’ve _had_ it with tolerating your petty temper tantrums.”

That was plain enough. Couldn’t talk. Wouldn’t talk.

What did it matter the distinction?

Either way, Gavin could stand to learn some real patience. He had implied on many an occasion he could, only that he was very unpracticed. It was time to start meaning it.

“Oh, fuck you, you can't just push me around.” As he said that, Gavin contradicted the thought that the same would ever go for him, by apparently reaching out and shoving Noah through the door with a fair amount of force.

Stumbling, but keeping his feet, Noah turned to face him quicker than Reed could react. Grabbing a handful of fabric at the shoulder, above the splinted arm, he kicked the door shut behind them - ensuring relative privacy - before flattening the detective facefirst into the wall.

“Perhaps before I couldn’t, but times change, don’t they, Detective?”

As it happened, CyberLife had been somewhat kind in loosening the permissions on his friendly fire protocols.

Turning his head as much as he could, Gavin tried his hardest to shake the android’s grip off of him, but evidently couldn't do it with only one arm really available. “Fuck you, get off of me. I don't give a shit what you can't and can do anymore, asshole.”

“Really? Because you seem to be giving too much of one with regard to everything else about me.”

“Fuck, you wanna be left alone, fine! Then lemme go, so you can go fucking sulk and work on the case, I'll remember next time I open my mouth to fuckin’ talk.”

Easing up, just enough that he wasn’t pinning his opponent to the wall, Noah twisted his arm enough to turn Reed around. Face to face, he might see just how aggravating this all was, for both of them.

Despite the hostile gesture, Noah tried to gentle his voice, just a few degrees:

“Can you at least try to behave something like a professional today? That’s all I’m asking.”

“Fine.” Sounding decidedly not fine with it, ever the contradictory human, Gavin mumbled the word out, before hesitating and trying again, eyes turning aside, subservient. “ _Fine._ …Sorry, or whatever. Let's just - get this shit over with.”

If only.

This new dynamic, like their case, couldn’t be built in a day.


End file.
